Sarah Urbonas

It sounds like you're mastering your craft in PMM with multiple promotions & raises (congrats!), so I'll focus my answer on building your leadership muscle to help your leadership team view you as a candidate for people management. Career Conversations: Set up dedicated time with your manager (separate from recurring 1:1s) to talk about your aspirations & ask what's needed to get there. This transparency in your career goals empowers your manager to share feedback to help you get to the ...Read More

The north star I try to stay grounded in through uncontrollable external factors: stay human & customer centric. This will help you make faster, more focused decisions that land with customers vs feeling opportunistic or tone deaf in uncertain times. At Dropbox, we launched a deep integration with Zoom in February 2020 to drive MM/ENT Dropbox usage. When COVID hit in March, we saw an uptick in integration adoption as Zoom became a household name and foundational SaaS tool. We listened to the ...Read More

The question I ask every PMM candidate: "What is your major & minor in Product Marketing?" PMMs flex many muscles, but asking this question helps me learn 1) where you shine the most, and 2) your humility as a team member. The strongest answers I've heard have focused on skillset strengths with specific examples, and how they lean on xfn peers in their 'minors' that aren't quite as skilled at or find as fulfilling. Highly recommend asking this question for roles beyond PMM too - oftentimes t ...Read More

These are my three tried-and-true steps to prepare for and land your dream PMM role. Create a 'job brief' with company information, recent news, flagship customers, target segments, and current messaging/positioning to orient around. Use this as your north star as you study & formulate interview questions & answers. This is typically one page with links out to news articles, website pages, & customer stories. Write out your accomplishments to demonstrate why you'd succeed in this rol ...Read More

Imitation doesn't feel like the highest form of flattery when competitors copy work that required months of research, customer validation, and building. Here are a few tips to stay ahead of the competition. Impact Metrics: Whenever possible, leverage a customer to beta the product or feature you're launching to come out of the gates with impact metrics (ie, time/money saved). We did this a lot at Dropbox to build credibility with strong customer logos, especially when entering new markets. It al ...Read More